BY FARID SABRI
Officials of the Directorate of Municipal Administration (DMA) of the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) have failed to recover more than 12 million rupees from over 11 defaulting shopkeepers of melody food market.
According to documents made available to Pakistan Today, there are 31 shops in melody food market where 11 of them have not been paying rent for the past 10 years and over 10 shop owners lag in their payments by at least 3 to 4 months. This practice is causing hefty losses to the civic authority.
“The concerned director, deputy director, assistant director and inspector are responsible for this negligence, how is it possible in the federal capital that shops established by CDA are not paying rent to the concerned authorities? There is something fishy afoot,” said an official of DMA, who requested not to be named.
Specifically, shop no. 06 is a defaulter of Rs. 82,6000; shop 7 owes 70,2046; shop 9 owes 88,7000; shop 10 owes 12,57000; shop 12 owes 164,0000; shop 14 owes 86,3000; shop 16 owes 124,0000; shop 17 owes 102,0000; shop 20 owes 160,0000; shop 21 owes 180,0000 and 10 other shops have dues amounting to 3 to 4 lac each, official documents reveal.
The official of MCI, DMA deployed at melody food market claimed the defaulting shopkeepers have good terms with DMA officials, are members of the market union, where one of them is the president of the blue area market union and 2 are members of the Chamber of Commerce.
An Assistant Director assigned the special task some 9 months ago to recover dues from the food market told Pakistan Today, “We’ve been working hard to recover these dues but don’t have the power to demolish them or take strict action at the moment, the defaulters are influential,” he concluded.
A day earlier, the Deputy Director of DMA Ali Sufyan informed the media that the directorate recovered 2 million rupees from the defaulters in his tenure. This was despite the clear cut orders of the Mayor where CDA officials were barred from speaking to media personnel.
When DD Ali Sufyan was contacted and asked why the DMA failed to recover 12 million rupees from defaulters, he refused to answer, adding that he wasn’t the concerned deputy director and asked Pakistan Today to take the issue up with Deputy Director Atta Awan. Once DD Atta Awan was finally contacted he claimed the contrary saying the food market comes under the jurisdiction of DD Ali Sufyan.
Sources raised the question of whether the concerned directorate was asleep for so many years or being paid for their connivance.
When contacted, the DMA Director for Public Relations, Mazhar Hussain, acknowledged the lapse on part of the DMA, adding that concerned dues would be recovered soon from defaulting shop keepers otherwise MCI would exercise their authority to take decisive action to the extent of demolishing defaulting shops in the area.
